And Intituled The humble Submiſsion and Supplication of the Lord LITTLETON, Lord Keeper of the Great Seale of England.
IT may pleaſe your Lordſhips: I ſhall humbly crave at you r Lordſhips hands a benigne Interpretation of that which I ſhall now write, for words that come from waſted ſpirits, and an oppreſſed mind are more ſafe in being depoſited in a noble2 conſtruction than being incircled with any reſerved caution.
This being moved, and as I hope obtained in the nature of a Protection, to all that I ſhall ſay, I ſhal now make into the reſt, wherewith I ſhall at this time trouble your Lordſhips, a very ſtrange entrance, for in the mid'ſt of a ſtate of as great affliction, as I thinke mortall man can endure, honour being above life, I ſhall begin with the profeſsion of gladneſſe in ſome things.
The firſt is that hereafter the greatneſſe of a Iudge or Magiſtrate ſhall bee one ſanctuary or protection of guiltineſſe which in few words is the beginning of a golden world.
The next is, that after this example it is likely that Iudges will flye from any thing, that is in likeneſſe of corruption, though it were at a great diſtance as from a ſerpent, which tendeth to the purging of the Courts of Iuſtice, and reſtoring them to their true honour and ſplendor.
And in theſe two points, God is my witneſſe, though it be my fortune to be the Anvill upon which thoſe good effects are beaten and wrought, I take no ſmall comfort.
But to paſſe from the motions of my heart, whereof God is only Iudge, to the merits of my3 cauſe, whereof your Lordſhips are Iudge next vnder God, and his Lieutenant, I do vnderſtand there hath been heretofore expected from mee ſome juſtification. And therefore I have choſon one only juſtification of Iob, for after the cleere ſubmiſsion and confeſsion which I ſhall now make vnto your Lordſhips, I may ſay, and juſtifie with Iob, in theſe words: I have not hid my ſinne, as did Adam, nor concealed my thoughts in my boſome.
This is the only juſtification which I will uſe.
It reſteth therefore that without fickleneſſe, I doe ingeniouſly confeſſe and acknowledge that having vnderſtood the particulars of the charge, not formally from the houſe, but enough to informe my conſcience, and memory, I find matter ſufficient and full, both to move me to deſert the defence, and to move your Lordſhips, to condemne and cenſure me, neither wil I trouble your Lordſhips by ſingling out thoſe particulars, which I think may fall off.
Quid te extempta juvat ſpinis de pluribus uva? neither would I prompt your Lordſhips to obſerve vpon the proofes, where they come not home, or the ſcruple touching the credit of the witneſſes, nor will I repreſent vnto your Lordſhips4 how far a defence might in divers things extenuate the offence in reſpect of the time, or manner of the gift, or the like circumſtances, but onely leave thoſe things to ſpring out of your noble thoughts and obſervations of the evidence and examinations themſelves, and charitably to wind about the particulars of the charge here and there, as God ſhall put into your mindes, and ſo ſubmit my ſelfe wholly to your pietie and grace.
Now as I have ſpoken to your Lordſhips as Iudges, I ſhall ſay a few words to you as Peeres, and Prelates, humbly commending my cauſe to your noble minds and magnanimous affections.
Your Lordſhips are not ſimply Iudges but Parliamentary Iudges, you have a further extent of arbitrary power, than other Courts, and if your Lordſhips be not tyed to the ordinary courſe of Courts, or preſidents in the points of ſtrictneſſe, and ſeverity much leſſe in the points of mercy and mitigation. And yet if any thing that I ſhal move, be contrary to your Honorable and worthy ends to introduce a reformation, I ſhould not ſeek it. But herein I beſeech your Lordſhips to give mee leave to tell you a ſtory, TITUS MANLIUS tooke his ſons life for giving battaile, againſt the prohibition of his Generall. Not many yeares5 after, the like ſeverity was purſued againſt QUINTUS MAXIMUS by PAPIRUS CURSER, the Dictator, who being upon the point to be ſentenced, by interceſsion of ſome principall perſons of the Senate was ſpared; whereupon TITUS LIVIUS maketh this grave, and gracious obſervation: Neque minus firma eſt diſciplina militaris, periculo QUINTI MAXIMI, quim miſerabili ſupplicio TITI MANLII. The diſcipline of war was no leſſe eſtabliſhed by the queſtioning of QUINTUS MAXIMUS, than by the puniſhment of TITUS MANLIUS; and the ſame reaſon is of the reformation of Juſtice, for the queſtioning men of eminent place hath the ſame terror, though not the ſame rigor with the puniſhment.
But my caſe ſtayeth not here, for my humble deſire is, that his Majeſty would bee pleaſed to take the Seale into his hands, which is a great downefall, and may ſerve, I hope, in it ſelfe for an expiation of my faults.
Wherefore if mercy and mitigation be in your power, and doe no wayes croſſe your ends; why ſhould not I but hope for your Lordſhips favour and commiſeration.
Your Lordſhips will be pleaſed to behold the chiefe Paterne, the King our Soveraigne, a King of6 incomparable clemencie, and one whoſe heart is inſcrutable for wiſdom and goodneſſe; your Lordſhips will remember that there ſate not theſe hundred yeares before, a Prince in your Houſe, and never ſuch a Prince, whoſe preſence deſerves to be made memorable with Records, and Acts mixt with mercie and juſtice; your ſelves are either Nobles, and compaſsion ever breatheth in the veines of Noble bloud, or Prelates, who are ſervants to him, that will not break the bruiſed Reeds, nor quench the ſmoaking Flax.
You all ſit under one high Stage, and therefore cannot but be more ſenſible of the changes of the world, and of the fall of any in high place; neither will your Lordſhips forget that there are vitia temporis, as well as vitia hominis, and that the beginning of reformation, hath the contrary power of the Poole of Betheſda, for that had ſtrength to cure onely him that was firſt caſt in, and this hath commonly ſtrength to hurt onely him that is firſt caſt in, and for my part I wiſh it may ſtay there, and go no further.
Laſtly, I aſſure my ſelfe your Lordſhips have a noble feeling of mee as a member of your own body, and one that in this very Seſsion had ſome taſte of your loving affections, I hope it was not a7 lightning before the death of them, but rather a ſparke of that grace, which now in the concluſion will more appeare. And therefore my humble ſuit unto your Lordſhips, is, that my penitent ſubmiſsion, may be my ſentence, and the taking away of the Seale my puniſhment, and that your Lordſhips will ſpare any further ſentence, but recommend me to his Majeſties Grace, and pardon for all that is paſt. Gods holy Spirit be amongſt you.
(EEBO-TCP ; phase 2, no. A88376)
Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 111620)
Images scanned from microfilm: (Thomason Tracts ; 22:E124[8])
Created by converting TCP files to TEI P5 using tcp2tei.xsl, TEI @ Oxford.
EEBO-TCP is a partnership between the Universities of Michigan and Oxford and the publisher ProQuest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by ProQuest via their Early English Books Online (EEBO) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). The general aim of EEBO-TCP is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic English-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in EEBO.
EEBO-TCP aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the Text Encoding Initiative (http://www.tei-c.org).
The EEBO-TCP project was divided into two phases. The 25,363 texts created during Phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 January 2015. Anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source.
Users should be aware of the process of creating the TCP texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data.
Text selection was based on the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature (NCBEL). If an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in NCBEL, then their works are eligible for inclusion. Selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. In general, first editions of a works in English were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably Latin and Welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so.
Image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. Quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in Oxford and Michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet QA standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. After proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. Any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. Understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of TCP data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. Users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a TCP editor.
The texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the TEI in Libraries guidelines.
Copies of the texts have been issued variously as SGML (TCP schema; ASCII text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable XML (TCP schema; characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless XML (TEI P5, characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or TEI g elements).
Keying and markup guidelines are available at the Text Creation Partnership web site.
This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. Searching, reading, printing, or downloading EEBO-TCP texts is reserved for the authorized users of these project partner institutions. Permission must be granted for subsequent distribution, in print or electronically, of this EEBO-TCP Phase II text, in whole or in part.